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Last minute trip: 10/31 - 11/2 @ Harrahs

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

I had been contemplating another Vegas trip and this past Monday I finally had a small gap in my work schedule that allowed me to sneak away for several days. So Monday about 2 pm I purchased a plane ticket to head to Vegas. My flight departed Indy at 4:45 so I had little time to get packed and to the airport. After a quick stop at bank and a 20 minute drive to airport I lucked out in that security was a breeze. The Indy airport always seems to have plenty of security lines open and this time was no different. I got through security and had about 20 minutes to kill before I had to get on the plane. I booked through Allegiant which is a low cost high fee driven airline but one that I can book last minute direct flights. My only other direct flight option was Southwest. Allegiant cost 159 plus fees vs Southwest 575.

It has become commonplace for me to book my trips last minute and details that other people might worry about I do not. With this being the case right after I booked a ticket I shot my host a text asking if he could take care of room and airport transportation. I got to the airport and I still hadn't heard anything back. Right before getting on my flight I shot over another text and said I was getting on a plane and wouldn't have any phone access but if he could just send confirmation that room/limo was setup.

Flight went off without a hitch. Not sure why but Allegiant tends to seat everyone very early. When I got to gate there wasn't anybody lined up and not everyone sitting and waiting but the door was still open. I knew there was still another 10 minutes of boarding or so therefore I sat down and was doing some last minute emails. The gate agents did ask if I was on the flight and checked me in just by my name and about 10 minutes later told me I needed to get on. While generally an aisle seat guy I only had the option of booking a window seat. I did luck out in that one of about 10 empty middle seats was in my row which made the flight much more enjoyable. Flight went smoothly taking about 3.5 hours. We had 3 rounds of drink service and I had no complaints. I know Allegiant gets a bad rap on a lot of these boards but I had no complaints.

Upon landing in Vegas flipped phone out of airplane mode and got a few text messages but none from my host. I didn't panic and just headed towards ground transportation. Without receiving limo confirmation I decided I would just grab an uber. Its been a couple trips since I ubered and the signage in the airport is dramatically improved on where to go. It took about 10 minutes for my driver to arrive and there were probably about 25-30 people waiting on an uber. Once I got into the Uber I told him to head to
Harrahs. We headed that direction and we hit a pretty good amount of traffic. I was impressed with this guys driving skills as he started cutting through a few parking lots and creating an alternate route to bypass the traffic. Trip ended up costing only $11.52.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

In the Uber heading towards harrahs I knew that I would need some type of room so I was able to book a 1 bed executive suite on my phone. The only problem was that I had some freeplay offers and I couldnt choose both a better room and the freeplay on my phone Upon getting to diamond check-in I went and spoke with a host prior to talking to the check-in person. They were having trouble making adjustments as they weren't my assigned host. They ended up just printing some freeplay vouchers and leaving the room reservation I booked the way it was. No complaints from my side as usually they just say the computer won't let me. The host walked me over to the check-in person and made sure everything went smoothly with check-in.

After getting checked in I dropped my bag off at my room, changed clothes, and headed towards the casino. I know in a lot of posts on this board someone staying at Harrahs would get eviscerated and told over and over to not stay there. I have been staying at Mirage as my primary casino since about 2012 and Harrahs is the closest walk to any other property from there. With that being the case I ended up coming over more and more to switch it up whenever I needed a change of luck or scenery. For the past year or so it seems that my luck at Harrahs has been good and at the Mirage it keeps getting worse. With that being the case I am now about 50/50 with half my trips at Mirage and half at Harrahs.

I am platinum with Mlife and Diamond with Total Rewards. I started this trip with just over 60K total rewards points. I would consider my play level to be mid-range. For this trip I brought a bankroll of 8K.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

The other major factor for my play switching to Harrahs is the main game I play is Pai Gow Tiles. I started playing about 2010 and thoroughly enjoy the game. I know the wizardofodds.com message board readers are pretty big proponents of the game and that is where I originally learned about it and how to play. While complicated to learn at first I find that it gives me the most thrill in the casino. When playing blackjack you know exactly what move to make every single card. Basic stratgegy dictates it therefore the game can be repetitive at times. Tiles requires constant thinking every single hand. The other game that I have been playing the majority of the time is Baccarat. For anybody that enjoys turning the cards in Baccarat you get a similar feeling when revealing your tiles. You also can get the team atmosphere at a table as you can cobank up to every other hand if desired with other players allowing it to be players vs the house. Harrahs generally had Midi baccarat for $50 minimum at anytime on the main floor and $100 minimum in high limit.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

I started the first night playing tiles for about an hour and then heading to dinner. I bought in for 2k cash and 300 in freeplay and cashed out 2275 so overall not a bad conversion of freeplay to cash. I ended up eating at the Ruth's Chris at harrahs both Monday and Tuesday night. Both nights the food was excellent. They have a nice bar and lounge area with excellent bartenders. They also have a great strip view if looking for that kind of atmosphere as there are floor to ceiling windows overlooking the strip. After dinner and I went and played some more tiles and baccarat. I couldn't make a great profit at either game so decided to switch it up a bit. I went across the street to the Mirage and played over there for about an hour. Its hard to believe that Mirage now only has 2 baccarat tables tucked into the front corner of their high limit room when not too long ago they had about 20 and an entire baccarat room. They just no longer have many players. My play at Mirage was a slow up and down and I ended up cashing out about 1K up. I decided it was time to take a bit of a break from gambling and headed to the Piano bar at harrahs. I will say that this place can be really fun or can be really flat. It just depends on the crowd. Being halloween night the crowd was definitely entertaining and it turned out to be a really fun night. From this point on my trip was somewhat of a blur as I consumed quite a lot of coors light. Combing that with being up almost 24 hours at this point the outcome was either going to be really good or really bad.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

For about the next 4-5 hours I spent the majority of it at the tiles table. On most of my trips I never adjust from East coast time. I usually am up around 4-5 am vegas time each day so the group of dealers I play with most often is the morning shift, 4-12. With that being the case I have built a really good repore with several of the dealers. I did another stint of baccarat over at Mirage and was able to eak out another small win. Unfortunately this wasn't enough to offset the losses I had taken at Tiles. At this point I was down about 5K overall my bankroll was starting to diminish. I decided to take a break and went to breakfast next door at the LInq. I went to Guy Fieris and had the chicken fried bacon breakfast. I have given this place about 4-5 chances and I never have left there satisfied. It seems that service has diminished from when it first opened. From here I headed back to harrahs and bounced between baccarat and tiles. Upon starting off it was a bit more of slow losing. My remaining chips on the table were down to 400. The previous hand I had bet 600 so I was able to bank for 600. It seems that every trip I have I can point to a 30 minute period that set the tone to the remainder of my trip. This hand really set this off as it was almost an all in moment when I had to set a low hand of 1 and a high hand of 8. I ended up winning the hand by having a higher 1. When you start hitting with poor hands it is a wonderful feeling. Its comparable to the come behind victory in blackjack when dealer flips over their cards and has an 11 showing and you think they are going to make 21 and by luck a little card comes out and then they bust. For the next half hour after that I steadily hit hands, and had some great pushes. I ended up coloring up 9500.00. This was quite a great feeling as just a bit earlier I was at risk of busting out and having to go get some more cash out.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

At this point I thanked the dealers and said I was going to head to bed. I made a deposit at the cage and then headed up to my room. I plugged in my phone and laid down to go to sleep. As many trips that I have in Vegas I am not able to sleep well. I ended up tossing and turning for about an hour and realized it was time to stop fighting the urge. I got up, took a quick shower, and was ready to go some more. At this point after losing most of my bankroll and winning it back I told myself that I was going to play small, bounce around, and just have fun. I ended up walking down the strip and stopping and playing at a few places. I bypassed the linq and decided to play at the Flamingo. I very rarely stop in the Margaritaville casino but they do have a good craps table in here. The crowd that I generally encounter in this part of the casino is there for vacation fun. It isn't people real serious or real young kids but generally 30-60 year olds that are there to relax and enjoy. I ended up playing craps here for about 2 hours. I did have one good roll that I hit 3 seperate numbers and was on the verge of hitting the fire bet. While I didn't hit the fire I did well on pressing my bets and making a decent profit. From here I kept walking down the strip and stopped in at the Cromwell. I started out playing craps here and it was cold. It was nice having the option of 100x odds. The table was only 5 dollars and I had a few hands where I had my odds up to about $200. Despite the advantageous rules the table was cold. I decided to try some Baccarat. The area where they have baccarat tables was dead with only 1-2 other tables open. The dealer I had was very nice but I couldn't pick correctly to save my life. After losing what felt like 10 hands in a row I needed to go grab some more cash. I stopped by the cage at Crowell and let them know I had money at harrahs and if they could transfer some over. I have done this before between Aria and Mirage but never at a CET property before. I was told that it is possible but will take a while and probably isn't worth the hassle. I said no problem and I would just run back to grab some. I am still up in the air on my thoughts on Cromwell. I like how they redid the property and think it is a fun environment but the crowd there has never rubbed me the right way. It is much worse at night when they clubs are going full swing and it can get pretty rough in there.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

At this point I walked back to Harrahs and decided it was time to grab a bite to eat. I have found in most of my trips I tend to do the same things over and over. This is especially true when I am on a solo trip. So for the 2nd night in a row I headed to Ruths Chris. The restaurant was far busier this evening. It seemed like more of the SEMA crowd and the world series was also on. I ended up enjoying relaxing and having some good food and drinks. When diding solo I sit at the bar 90% of the time and this was no different. The bar was crowded and I ended up chatting with an older guy talking baseball for quite a while. Coming from Indiana I have never really been into it but he was a die hard cubs fan. I had another good meal along with excellent service.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

After spending a few hours at dinner and staying away for the tables a bit I was getting the urge to head back to them. I decided it was time to play some more baccarat as I needed some redemption to my last session of poor choice making. I started out at the Midi table on the general floor and couldn't really get anything going. I also was feeling tired to the point I was having trouble adding up numbers on cards. When you are rooting for the wrong cards at baccarat its time to stop betting. I cashed out and decided while too tired to gamble and I could enjoy a bit of time at the piano bar. I lasted about another 30 minutes here and headed to my room for bed for the night.

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Junior Member

Founder's Club

Wednesday morning I wake up and am laying in bed. I had just drank for a day straight and felt terrible and then it hits me. My flight leaves at 9:00 this morning and I have no clue what time it is. I look at my watch and it says 9 am. FML. Then it hits me. My watch is 9 am eastern and I didn't miss it. At this point I am wide awake and know there is only 1 thing left for a degererate gambler to do. Head to the tables and start drinking again. I headed downstairs and once again had a combination of baccarat and tiles. After getting a few drinks to go down I was feeling wonderful. I started on the main floor at baccarat and it wasn't anything special. I then moved into high limit. Usually at this hour high limit isn't open but they said they had a player in town that requested it so they opened it. So I soon realized that after drinking so much the day before and a few drinks again today I was quickly hammered. When this happens my bets go up and it either turns out really good or really bad. Lucky for me it was going decent. The drinking also caused me to start getting louder at the table. Luckily there were no other players in high limit and with it being sectioned off my excitement didnt draw attention. I knew the floor supervisor in there pretty well also which helped. Everytime I lost a few hands I was able to hit a big one. I did make my largest bet of the trip with 2900 bet on banker and 200 on the dragon bonus. They slid my cards over to me and I got a 3 side and a 4 side. While obviously this is better than nothing but there was still some outs for the other side and I didnt want to get to excited yet as I hadn't seen my full hand and I had my biggest bet of the trip out. I started with the 4 side and checked for pips in middle of each of the small sides. One on both so I know I have a 10. Now its to the 3 side card. I know I wont draw and it is narrowed down to a 6, 7, or 8. I check one small side and see a pip. Not a 6! Now to the other side. Another! I have natural 8. At this point I have jumped up knocking my chair backwards. I am pleading with the dealer to be nice. Player cards total to 5. My natural 8 wins. Payout of 2755+200=2955.

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